Nina's 20vt swap

Saturday, June 11, 2011

I was thinking about it and I don't think I have posted a picture of the engine bay in running condition.

I spent today working on getting the Race Technology dash running better. You have to tell it what every channel coming into is, what you want it called, and where to display the info. While I was working on getting the fuel sender functioning I realized that I had made a mistake in the wiring for it. Apparently there is some functionality in the original gauge that gets lost when you remove the cluster. I had to add in a pull up resistor and change the reserve fuel circuit a bit, but it is functioning now. I will calibrate the dash on that circuit tomorrow. I also want to move the fuel pump and fan relay circuits onto the vems tomorrow. Then I can control when they come on an off from within the computer. I'll leave in the override switches, never know when I might need one again.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Well I had fun. The car doesn't handle like I want so before we add any more power to it we will have to do some suspension work. I figured I would put up a few event pics though, you know just to prove that it is really running. The fist one is for Marc to show off the nice EFI Express stickers and the second is for me.

I never had the car smoke the tires coming out of a corner before! After we do the suspension work and add some nice sticky tires it just might be a rocket ship.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Just sharing a pic of the car with some stickers applied loaded on the trailer. Tomorrow will be her return to the autox track. I don't expect anything magical to happen since there is lots left to do. Right now we are not using electronic boost control so we are limited to mechanical control. I also will change the wiring of the fan and fuel pump circuits so that vems has control over them. Wild guess that we are running about half the horsepower that I would like, but you gotta start somewhere and she needs a shake down cruise. I need to see how the car tracks with the current boost curve. Hope it not to laggy for what I need. It sure is fun on the highway though.

Friday, May 27, 2011

I have done quite a bit recently. Once you get the motor to run you begin to find all the short comings of all the powered systems. I had a couple of fluid leaks that I had to fix. There was a small vacuum leak on the mounting flange of the throttle body relocator that was fixed by honing that surface true. I had forgot to switch the two pins on the secondary crank trigger. That results in intermittent misfiring that makes the wideband read full lean all the time. I can't say enough about Marc with EFIExpress. His support of the VEMS has been outstanding and he really knows the system inside and out. Thanks Marc! The tune is pretty good for sitting still so to get to more of the cells I will have to start driving it. That being said I need to get seats and belts installed today. I'll keep plugging away at this thing, but I think we're out of the woods now. Lots left to do though before its over.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

I should have seen this coming. When it comes down to it there isn't really enough fuse slots to reuse for the engine transplant. I'd hate to pile a lot more onto the dme relay, since they can already be problems. I just got in a seven circuit fuse panel to support some of the stuff in the car. Installing it and doing the last wiring bits is on the plate for tomorrow. There will be pictures of this also.

About Me

I'm on Facebook if you have questions. I have always enjoyed working on cars. My first one was a 78 Firebird. Here are couple of others that I have owned: 69 mustang, 78 BMW 525, 78 280 Mercedes, and several Jeeps. We currently have a 53 Willys (future project), 86 Fiero GT, 99 F350, 03 TDI Golf, 96 s6 (parts car), 01 z06 corvette, and an 87 944. I was a helicopter mechanic for 17 years, but have recently switched to mobile communications.